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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27275902">Catch &amp; Release</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/AngelOfDeath10/pseuds/AngelOfDeath10'>AngelOfDeath10</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Naruto</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, F/M, GaaSaku Spooky Week 2020, Mythical Beings &amp; Creatures, discord prompt, hints of romance</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-07 03:29:12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>6,078</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27275902</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/AngelOfDeath10/pseuds/AngelOfDeath10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Sakura only wanted to do her job, but creeping doubts and an unlikely dinner companion have her questioning how her future should proceed.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Gaara/Haruno Sakura</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>50</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Catch &amp; Release</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Prompt was: Mythical monster + Deep waters + Tombs.  Which my brain decided to twist into the least spooky thing possible.  Halloween fail.</p><p>Disclaimer: I don't own these characters, obvs.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>As of late, Sakura had been thinking rather deep thoughts. This was never a good sign for someone in her line of work, because for all intents and purposes she was rather a moral sort of individual and the more she pondered the nature of her work the more she was coming to think it was rather, well, <i>evil</i>. Ultimately, her real mistake was ever voicing even a trace of doubt to Ino. Her friend lit into her as expected without really considering the obvious logic surrounding Sakura's conclusion.</p><p>"Is feeding our pod an evil goal?" Ino asked as she brushed out her long hair in the warm breeze that graced them today. Most of the time these rocky outcroppings they perched themselves on were cold and slimy, so it was a nice trend in the weather today that had them sunning their bodies until a thrum of happiness picked up in the back of Sakura's throat.</p><p>"No, of course not. Feeding everyone is why we exist! I just… well… have been thinking about it a little bit from the perspective of the food." Sakura had chopped off most of her hair in a fit of pique last month when it had gotten twisted in a loose beam while she was gathering meat. It wouldn't have taken all that much time to work it out of the jagged wood, but the general dissatisfaction that gripped her was manifesting in impulsive decisions. She twirled what was left of a pink lock around her index finger absently.</p><p>Ino had scolded her about the hair incessantly as well. <i>What if someone sees us now? There's Hinata, pale, long hair singing wistfully. There's me, pale, long hair singing seductively. Then now there's you, pale, shaggy hair a mess, and at that point who cares how you're singing because they've already gotten hung up on the fact that you don't belong. See the problem here? Half of what makes this work is enticement! </i> And she wasn't wrong. Image was definitely a lot of what drove success in this job.</p><p>"Going vegetarian are we? You think these teeth were built for eating seaweed alone?" Ino gnashed her pointed teeth at Sakura, snapping then so close to her nose that Sakura could feel the push of air from the snort Ino gave when she didn't so much as flinch. "Get real Sakura, we're all carnivores here and I can't imagine you'd want to go back to chasing schools of fish around hoping for a snack. Besides, why else can we sing like this?"</p><p>Starting up her part of their much-rehearsed harmony, Ino landed on the first part of a saga she often liked to riff on about a beautiful woman who is saved from a sea monster by a handsome hero. Sometimes, depending on how much she wanted to mess with Hinata, she would make the hero's grand rescue and the lady's manner of thanks rather salacious. You had to make fun where you could considering they were stuck in each other's company all day for days on end until there was a catch. There hadn't been so much as a merchant vessel all week.</p><p>"I wonder why the men can't sing." Hinata wondered aloud. She was trying to change the subject away from a source of conflict, never liking it when her fellow sirens squabbled.</p><p>"I heard Kisame try once. It was better left unrepeated. I told him to stick his head in a sink hole if he wanted to practice so at least no one else had to hear."</p><p>Sakura had no particular fondness for Kisame, but he was still part of the pod. "That's not very nice, Ino. I'm sure he sang badly on purpose because he knew it would make you react poorly. I can't blame him." While it would have been easy to continue on this topic Sakura didn't want to abandon her line of inquiry from before. "But all the same, ladies, have you ever really thought about this whole venture from the perspective of the sailors?"</p><p>Knowing her friend, and the tenacity at which she would stay on topic, Ino indicated with a sigh and a magnanimous hand gesture that she might as well continue.</p><p>"I mean, say you're some warrior and you've just been away for months fighting barbarians and you've finally won against the smelly bastards! Then you step on a ship to take a journey back to your tiny village in the middle of nowhere—and maybe you were seasick at first but it's only a few days by boat compared to months marching overland so you might as well risk it. Then maybe halfway through the trip you hear something over the shouts and sea shanties and it reminds you of a shirt your grandmother wove you as a child, or of a girl you left behind, and then suddenly….. POW!" Sakura plopped a fist sized rock into a shallow pool next to them, splashing their mostly dry legs. Ino squealed at Sakura's rude dramatic reenactment of a boat hitting the rocks as well as the inevitable aftermath. "I mean, we may eat well for a little while, but the flesh of humans isn't the only thing we eat and I wonder if we just do this because it's, I don't know, easy?"</p><p>Hinata gave a sniff, kind soul that she was, even if Sakura had seen her rip into briny flesh with a viciousness unparalleled when she was hungry. At least in this moment she could spare a tear for the imaginary warriors Sakura had conjured up.</p><p>Ino pushed at Hinata's arm. "Don't listen to her. I knew it was a mistake to make you sing about glory in battle, you're in their heads now. But you blush too much to make the love songs believable, and no one can do sappy better than Hinata…"</p><p>Doubts didn't suit her, Sakura figured. Tsunade had doubted once, even courted a human if the rumor was true, but he died as they do and she had had to move on and protect her people. She had even chosen Sakura to take her place among the three, sharing the gift and teaching the song to her. It had been the honor of a lifetime, and Sakura should have been happily hauling their catch home to the pod along with Ino and Hinata. She had status, more meat rations than most, and yet also a niggling feeling that this wasn't the life she should be leading.</p><p>"I see a sail!" Hinata leapt to her feet and used her hands to shield her eyes as she confirmed. First spotted meant she had first pick when and if the ship went down today.</p><p>Despite all her lofty talk, the prospect of meat made Sakura salivate and she ran her tongue over the sharp points of her teeth as she thought about how long it had been since she had a proper meal. Was her sense of morality so weak she'd toss it away for a full belly? The sharp elbow that jabbed her side as the ship drew closer and Hinata and Ino took up the harmony jolted her automatically into song and for long moments the joy of singing together took her on a journey.</p><p>This was the part that only those who had been chosen to carry the song could explain. Just as others were enchanted by their singing, so too were the sirens often caught up in the experience of their own voices. Sakura could barely hear what the others sang of, but for her part she imagined a vivid battle where spears clashed and great heroes rose above to discover the power of demi-gods flowing in their veins. In her song no one died and everyone took glory back to their homeland. It was a beautiful fantasy and in many ways the boat itself was long forgotten until the sound of splitting timbers broke the spell.</p><p>That was their signal. Diving from the rock, Sakura felt her body fuse seamlessly and an insulating layer of scale and fat warm her from the bottom of her ribs on down. Not silvery and reflective like Hinata, or a colorful mottled orange like Ino, Sakura's green scales matched her eyes and she always thought that they suited her even if she would have loved to have Ino's bold colors or Hinata's sleek lines. And regardless of the ribbing Ino gave her for having the least interesting song, Sakura was still the most powerful swimmer among them and easily outpaced her two compatriots as they waited below for the bodies that had stopped struggling against the sea's embrace.</p><p>Before the current took them, they would pile the bodies at an agreed upon location not far from here and fetch their pod so that meat could be divided up and taken to a small nearby island for drying and storage. Taking recognizable human remains to their cove was too high of a risk in case human visitors passed through. It looked like this catch would provide supplement to the pod's diets for a few months at least. Dodging some rather strapping but now still oarsmen, Sakura felt her heart speed up as she spotted a slim frame ahead. Praying that there had been no children aboard, she would have sighed in relief if she had been in the air for up close the slim form was clearly an adult. Judging from the fine and distinct clothes he wore, he was probably the captain of this vessel or at least a dignitary.</p><p>As Ino caught up next, she signed a comment to Sakura. <i>You and red hair…</i></p><p>Answering with a rude gesture, Sakura found herself sneaking glances at the young human until finally hooking him with her nails and hauling him by a leg past a deep current and into the partially sunken cave that lay near the rocks they had been sunning themselves on. Through a bend in the rock formation she emerged in a mostly dry cave that held enough bioluminescence to give her sensitive eyes a view of nearby pillars with strange carvings. This temple was an easy temporary storage site for the bodies they collected before the pod came to distribute the carcasses. Sakura liked this hunting ground the best of their handful of sites because of this temple, as it always made her feel at ease here.</p><p>Plopping the slim man hard on his back, she was about to dive back to retrieve the next body when there was a gurgling cough.</p><p>
  <i>No.</i>
</p><p>A low groan told Sakura that she had been too hasty in snatching him up. Ino had warned her this might happen someday, just as she would scold her for wasting her energy saving anyone she deemed too young to be used for food. Sakura drew a hard line on that topic, and had even enlisted Hinata more than once in hauling living human children back to shore. But this was the first time she was encountering a live adult.</p><p>Flexing her hands tipped with gently curved nails that seemed closer to talons than a human's fingernail she slowly transformed back into a biped and felt the cold of the cave wash over her. Somewhere there must still be an opening to the sky because there was always a draft, and goosebumps swept down her damp back as she slowly crawled towards the red-haired man. Quietly, she expelled the water from her lungs so that she could fill them with air instead.</p><p>The first things the red-haired man did were sit up, cough up more liquid, then softly curse in a language Sakura was pleased to recognize. While her singing magically transcended language, she herself only knew a couple languages well and really only enough of an additional handful of dialects to get by in various human markets along the coastline.</p><p>"What are you?" He said without turning around, and Sakura wondered how he had known she was there. Unlike her kind with enhanced senses, humans tended to be oblivious without clearer signals.</p><p>"I am Sakura," She said, preferring to interpret his rude request as 'who'. Now that he was closer and there was no one to scold her for it she had circled round to openly stare at him. Thin dark lines covered his skin, practically pulsing, and his eyes appeared black with a beady point of green light in the center where the iris should have been. With another start she realized this man may be no closer to being human than she was. "Who are you?"</p><p>His skin continued to bulge and sink and she watched his clothing strain to contain him as he groaned under what looked to be a partial transformation that wasn't succeeding. Unlike her seamless transitions he appeared to be in a lot of pain.</p><p>"Gaara of the Sand," he grit out, and Sakura watched with deep interest as his hands formed claws only to turn back into pale fleshy fingers as she watched. Did that make her Sakura of the Sea? From the way he had said it, it seemed significant like he expected her to know something more now. This was all exhausting already. She was tasked with dealing with dead humans, but Sakura was a bit confused with how to deal with a live—whatever this male was. He flopped around in his now torn wet clothes until finally he grew still, but Sakura knew there wasn't much time until they were discovered by her fellow sirens and needed to get moving.</p><p>"More of my kind will be coming here soon. If you don't want to have to answer any uncomfortable questions, I suggest you hide in that building over there. I'll come get you once I know it's safe and we'll talk about how to get you home." If she wasn't going to kill him and eat him, it seemed like the decent thing to do to return him, after all. Catch and release.</p><p>"You should have let me die."</p><p>Fusing her legs and growing her scales again in front of her new 'friend', Sakura shrugged as if it were not her problem. She could feel her arm muscles strain as she pushed herself over the short expanse of rock and back into the water with a splash a little too quickly. "If my pod catches you here I'm sure they'll gladly oblige. Some of them are probably adventurous eaters." Kisame for one, he would eat anything. "All I made was a suggestion, Gaara of the Sand."</p><p>*<br/>*<br/>*</p><p>Sakura was extra exhausted by the time the last person had hauled their dead human out of the cave. The pod was very grateful as usual, and as catches went it was a higher yield than expected so she could feel the same day soreness setting in to her muscles from hauling and setting out bodies. Quietly, Sakura hadn't claimed her tithe of the meat, and as Hinata and Ino were trussing up their humans for transport back home to the village Ino remarked on the lack.</p><p>"You'll waste away to nothing with a conscience like that. How long do you think you'll last before you try to sneak a bite from one of us? Well, I can tell you already you can go—" The hiss that escaped Ino's mouth was startling, but since Sakura was pretty quick on the uptake she could guess the reason long before she turned to watch Gaara stride confidently out of the temple. It didn't take him long to get close enough that she could see him shiver in his still damp clothes.</p><p>"I thought I told you to wait. As in wait." She turned around, hands on her hips as a sharp nail tapped against her skin in irritation. She saw what seemed to be a blush spread across his pale cheeks, but the light was low in the cave and his expression never changed so she wondered if she imagined it. Sakura supposed that if he had been living among humans then his expectations about clothing were probably that it was to be worn. When working, like today, it just got in the way. His looked nearly useless, for example, yet he persisted in wearing the scraps.</p><p>"If you're going to kill me, you'll need help." Gaara said simply with a shrug, seemingly still fixated on the idea that he also was to be made into a meal.</p><p>"That's not going to happen." Was he disappointed? What in the deepest cold watery hell could he be thinking? "We don't kill people in cold blood."</p><p>Ino mumbled nearby, "… Kisame would…" But Sakura pointedly ignored her while Hinata looked like she was struggling to breathe normally. Ino wandered over to rub comforting circles against their friend's back and dart angry looks at Sakura that screamed <i>handle this</i>.</p><p>With a groan, Sakura impatiently addressed the sole survivor of today's shipwreck. "And why do you think we would want to kill you now when I even offered to swim you back to shore later?"</p><p>"… Sakura, you didn't!"</p><p>"Shut up, Ino!"</p><p>Ridges of skin where his eyebrows should have been drew together as Gaara answered simply with, "I'm Gaara of the Sand."</p><p>The sirens shared a look between them as each one questioned the others silently. No one had any idea why his name might be significant to his mortality. Hinata signed <i>nobility?</i> to the others, but Ino scoffed. Sakura wasn't so sure, after all he had ben dressed more nicely than the other men on the boat even if he didn't appear to wear any jewelry. For some reason when Sakura imagined a foreign prince, she always thought they would be wearing a lot of gold. Then again, there was something about his bearing that implied an expectation of deference.</p><p>"My offer stands, however if you prefer to wander past the temple and take your chances in the caves then that's also your choice. You can't make the swim on your own with how strong the current runs immediately past the bend, so I wouldn't try."</p><p>For long moments everyone was so still that the sounds of a drip in the distance made Hinata flinch. Then Gaara drew a deep breath and turned on a bare heel to walk back towards the temple building from which he had emerged. Sakura, disappointed, figured that was her answer.</p><p>Ino was obviously relieved. "Come on ladies, the village will be in high spirits tonight with a catch. We have to get going so we don't miss the festivities. It feels like weeks since I've been able to see Sai and I'm not hanging around to try to convince your pet human to do what's in his own best interests."</p><p>That had seemed to be that.</p><p>Normally Sakura would have outpaced her fellow sirens, particularly since they were hauling bound corpses through the water towards the cove they all called home when not out hunting, but she found herself lagging behind. Eventually she realized she had ceased all forward momentum under he own power and it was in fact the current carrying her in a direction that was neither backwards nor forwards, so with an inward curse Sakura swept her tail powerfully and started back to the cave. It was already getting dark and given how much she hated swimming at night she was ensuring that she'd probably have to sleep on the cold rocks unless she was willing to brave the temple and Gaara.</p><p>He had seemed harmless enough, perhaps a little off, but then anyone who was actively seeking death probably had a rather complex inner life consuming them. Before entering the cave Sakura used her sharp nails and a convenient rock to pry some mussels off an outcropping and wondered how on earth she'd find a way to cook them given there was likely no fuel source or way to start a fire in the cave. All the same, it was the best meal she could manage on short notice in the dying light.</p><p>Once back in the cave, the low light was no different at night than it was in the day and Sakura expelled the water from her lungs with quick ungraceful snorts before she called out Gaara's name to the inner darkness beyond. Dropping the mussels in a neat pile she transformed back into legs and stretched still aching shoulders and thighs before heading into the temple area.</p><p>"Gaara! If you're there I brought food if we're clever enough to find a way to cook it!" She couldn't just leave him alone. He wasn't human, after all, so didn't that make him more like her pod than like their food? Perhaps he wanted to die because he didn't fit in to the human world. Even though Sakura could pretend long enough to buy something at a market or hold a simple conversation (usually about the weather) she was never at ease among human settlements. Living a life like that might drive her to desperation as well.</p><p>She finally found him, sitting on the half-collapsed steps that led to the porch of the temple. It was darker than most other areas as there were walls that still partially stood around it, and it was dry as a bone. Sakura had to force away the feeling that a sneeze was encroaching as Gaara watched her approach with cold eyes. It occurred to her that when he was acting aloof and predatory there was a familiarity to it that thrilled her. Sakura rightly assumed that calling him cute for staring daggers at her was not a winning approach.</p><p>"Still determined to die?"</p><p>"Have you come back to kill me?"</p><p>Sakura felt immediately irritated. "Why would I bring you food if I wanted to kill you?"</p><p>"Poison won't work on me. It's been tried."</p><p>"I just said," came her words through gritted jagged teeth, "that I wasn't here to kill you."</p><p>Gaara stood up finally from where he had been ostensibly brooding on the top step. "That remains to be seen."</p><p>*<br/>*<br/>*</p><p>Sakura didn't think they would be struck down by an angry god for using parts of the frame of the crumbling deity from the naos of the temple to start a fire. If said deity were all that powerful they wouldn't have allowed their sacred space to fall to ruin like this in the first place, but just to be safe she hadn't so much as touched a sliver of wood as Gaara steamed the mussels in a makeshift pan they had created out of a decorative bronze shield.</p><p>"So, and you can indicate if I'm wrong or not, but you didn't seem all that surprised by my teeth or talons, or even my occasional fish tail but you seemed absolutely uncomfortable about my lack of clothing so I'm going to take a stab and say that you were at least partially expecting… this." Despite gesturing to herself, Gaara still wouldn't look in her direction for longer than a couple seconds, and Sakura wondered if she would have to go find some mud and dab it on her breasts just to stifle his awkward guilt around her. "So why would someone like you, obviously well fed, with authority and—I'm also guessing—wealth, seek death so indirectly? I feel like an explanation would be polite given that I saved your life, regardless of how you feel about that."</p><p>With a sniff, Gaara wiped at a nose that seemed to be dripping from a coldness he wasn't accustomed to even with the fire warming them both. His body was weirdly delicate for all the bravado of approaching her and her fellow sirens earlier, and it made her feel protective. Too bad he still couldn't meet her eyes for fear of her chest. Sakura started to get up from the fire to go find some likely mud, when he finally spoke and she folded back down next to the fire quickly.</p><p>"I'm difficult to kill. I thought if any set of circumstances could ensure my death with the least number of additional casualties, that siren song would be the key."</p><p>Poking at the slowly opening mussels with a nail, Sakura stared at her dinner partner through the flames. "I have to say this is the first time I've ever heard of someone actually hoping they'd run into us. How did you possibly crew a vessel with a goal like that? No sailor would have signed away their life."</p><p>Gaara actually looked at her properly at last, perhaps realizing if he concentrated on her face that he didn't have to think about the rest of her body. "They were supposed to throw me overboard and leave. There was a… problem with a few of the men who did not take the proper precautions as we approached and well, you saw the result. No one achieved their goals today except your people." There was a certain sardonic edge to his voice.</p><p>"For what it's worth, I'm glad you're here with me. I've never met another non-human before other than my pod. How did you live so long among them? Are there more beings like you in the desert? I have to say the possibilities of beings like us in other places did occur to me a few times before, but it's hard to separate myth from reality." Changing into her tail and slapping the rocks behind her for emphasis, Sakura laughed as Gaara rolled his eyes. Apparently, her idea of playfulness wasn't his. "The mussels are done, by the way."</p><p>Carefully, she used her nails to hook the hot lip of the shield and pull it off the fire. Immediately the flame grew higher and hotter between them than it had been before. Ancient dry timber seemed to burn extra well. Perhaps holiness came into that as well.</p><p>"There are others like me. We do not live together. None of them reside in the desert other than me." Gaara was serious as he seemingly contemplated his hands, and Sakura subconsciously found herself hiding her talons behind her back and running her tongue nervously over sharp teeth. Suddenly, she regretted cutting off her long hair. The thought that Ino might have been right about something she had scoffed at for being shallow was as bitter as the realization that she cared how Gaara perceived her appearance. By human standards, she was a pretty girl so long as she didn't smile too widely, but she didn't know by what standards this new non-human judged anyone especially if they were apparently solitary by nature.</p><p>Scraping some meat out of the first mussel in the pile, Sakura chewed and thought about what loneliness did to a person long enough to know what she wanted to say next. "Everyone thinks you're dead, probably. Or they will when the ship never makes it back to port. From a practical point of view, you are dead to the world. Is that close enough to what you wanted?"</p><p>Gaara's jaw tightened, and he leaned back to stare at the cave ceiling. A couple hours ago the corpses of his crew had been divvied up and wrapped for transport by excited fish-people. Sakura wondered if that bothered him at all, or if it didn't what sort of life could a being like him have lived.</p><p>"You don't have to stay dead forever, but I'd see this as an opportunity to reinvent yourself. If you desired to do so." She pried another mussel out of the crack in its shell. "Or you could starve to death in this cave. But if you did that it would make me sad, at least."</p><p>Gaara's heavy glance was back on her. It appeared it was getting easier for him to look at her the more he forced himself to do it. As he sat up again his arm caught on a loose piece of fabric and the leverage of sitting up tore a hole that practically bared his chest. So pale he practically glowed in the fire light, Sakura wondered if that skin was as soft as it looked.</p><p>"I mean, as a fellow non-human." It was a weak addition. Now she was the one blushing, dammit.</p><p>*<br/>*<br/>*</p><p>"How many people do you think you've killed?" Gaara asked after they had eaten all the mussels and thrown some more sacred logs on the fire. He didn't appear to be sleepy and even though Sakura was yawning she wasn't about to fall asleep near this man. She had planned to swim back to the rocks and try to find an outcropping out of the wind to curl into, but perhaps just staying awake tonight was a better prospect.</p><p>"I told you we don't kill—"</p><p>"Then how many people have you sent to be eaten by your… pod?" He didn't have time for the semantics that Sakura recited to herself to rationalize her work. But the question was important to him otherwise he wouldn't have broken their after-dinner silence.</p><p>Tsunade had shared the mark and taught her a part of the harmony a mere handful of years ago, and since then Sakura and her fellow sirens hunted at least once a season. If she figured an average number of humans per catch then perhaps she could estimate.</p><p>"More than a hundred certainly. Perhaps a couple hundred." Sakura felt her heart constrict a bit, something about the concept of a hundred people dead because of her felt like it stole the breath from her lungs. Her newfound sympathy for the humans amplified Sakura's horror as she imagined the sadness of hundreds of families of the deceased. By her reckoning that was likely thousands of people shedding tears for those gone to slaughter. Saving a few human children couldn't atone.</p><p>He looked unimpressed, even as Sakura felt like the mussels were suddenly not sitting too well in her stomach. She was grateful she hadn't sampled any of today's human meat as it wouldn't have stayed down. Someone's son. Someone's friend.</p><p>"What if I told you I was a human?"</p><p>"I'd call you a liar," Sakura shot back, feeling a chill that prompted her to scoot closer to the fading source of warmth. "How could you possibly be human after what I saw?"</p><p>"It's complicated." Gaara also scooted closer to the fire, but at an angle that made Sakura wonder at their new proximity. "Without the other two of you can you still immobilize me?"</p><p>Sakura didn't like the turn of this conversation. It was one thing to share broad details of their lives, and quite another to divulge trade secrets. Tapping her forehead at the blue diamond that marked her as surely as her pink hair and dagger-like teeth, Sakura tried to put some distance between herself and his suddenly disturbing interest. "I told you, just because I have this doesn't mean I'm a monster. I'm not going to let you trick me into drowning you or whatever else you're plotting."</p><p>"If you don't kill me I will keep driving ships towards you until I succeed. And if you don't do something about it now, that makes you as culpable as if you had drawn a knife across their necks." He smiled this time as he threatened her, and Sakura felt dark anger bubble up. Selfish bastard!</p><p>She wasn't going to let him bait her like this.</p><p>"Lives are cheap. For every voyage that ends in failure I could kill them all and start again. Slaves, criminals, mercenaries… bodies are easy to find." It could have been the play of firelight in the cave, but Sakura could have sworn she saw something shift on the ground out of the corner of her eye. There was something like madness in his smile now as the shadows behind him were becoming distinctly sinuous. "Or perhaps what you need is a bit of encouragement. If you kill me in self-defense would your conscience be satisfied?"</p><p>As quickly as he had started to unravel Sakura had taken to softly humming, and as she imbued it with more of her power his words had faded in intensity such that the sandy bonds he had been twining slowly around her legs and arms slackened and dissolved. Dusting the last of it from her skin with finality she stood proudly and paced around both him and the campfire as he watched her with floppy movements of his head. The malevolent black eyes were back, and she wondered at how his entire bearing had shifted to murderous in the space of a few breaths.</p><p>The black lines that had been forming on his arms receded slowly as she squatted next to him and stroked his hair on a whim to see if it was as soft as she had imagined. She asserted her dominance in small ways, nearly affectionate, as she smoothed a hand over his bare shoulder. Drew light patterns with her nail on his chest. His eyes blinked sleepily at the contact and Sakura continued her absent and magically imbued humming. "What to do about you?" she sang, "I can't give you what you want, but you obviously have a hard time with 'no' and I can't tell if that's enough to damn you or not."</p><p>Up this close he was rather more vulnerable seeming than the gruff impression he gave off when he had all his faculties. His hands grasped her wrists to pull her claws towards his neck, ever determined, but his motions were slow and weak and Sakura shrugged him off with a twisting motion. The compulsion to sink into the dream of the song was rising as she formed more words, and she needed to stop before she was made entirely insensible.</p><p>"Now that we know where we stand, will you behave so we can discuss an accord?" Sakura trilled. At Gaara's floppy nod, Sakura ceased her song.</p><p>A mere arm length apart, Gaara radiated discomfort while Sakura sighed.</p><p>"Maybe Tsunade knows a witch. If nothing else perhaps your transformation can be bound, or sealed. Then you could kill yourself in whatever creative way you like." There was a spark of interest in Gaara's eyes, which was infinitely less disturbing than the madness of a moment ago. "And I suppose the only way I can be sure you don't make a menace of yourself is to ensure it happens personally."</p><p>At first the silly man didn't seem to understand her meaning, but then it finally filtered through and he wasn't able to fully hide his shock. "Is such a thing even possible?"</p><p>"Did you even try?" From his disgruntled look, Sakura was guessing no he hadn't.</p><p>In the silence, Sakura figured he was considering her words and she thought about how little preparation it would really take to pick up and leave with this stranger. Tenten was a likely third, possessing enough energy to power the magic of the seal without immediate mental exhaustion, and with Tsunade still around Sakura wouldn't even need to stay and teach her the harmony. There was no partner or child to tend to, and hadn't Sakura always said she meant to see more of the world before she had been made into a siren? Perhaps this was an opportunity in disguise.</p><p>"You'll regret your decision."</p><p>"That's my problem. And it looks like you're my problem now, as well. I'll need a couple days to arrange my departure from the village, so I'm afraid I'll have to take you to a nearby human settlement. Will you be able to conduct yourself normally for a week with humans?"</p><p>Gaara gave a look that told Sakura he thought her question patently ridiculous. For her part, Sakura took that as a 'no' and mentally tried to shave at least a couple days from her preparations.</p><p>"At least tell me you have some proper travel clothes." He conceded, and Sakura felt excitement she couldn't contain as she wrapped Gaara in a sudden hug. Or at least she tried to, because as soon as her arms came into contact with what should have been flesh she felt like she was hugging a statue given the shell of dirt that had formed over him.</p><p>Clearly, they had some trust issues to work on, but as Sakura tapped at the hard surface with her talons she thought that at the very least she was in for an exciting future.</p>
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